


Take Me Out Tonight

by webofdreams89



Category: Batgirl (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/F, First Date, Slurs, just the one though, super minor violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webofdreams89/pseuds/webofdreams89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Stephanie and Cass' first date. And its awkward. Crap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Out Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moontyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moontyger/gifts).



 “You can totally do this, Stephanie.  You totally can,” Stephanie said.  Her voice cracked and she frowned. 

“You’re Batgirl.  Batgirl can do anything.”

She ran her fingers through her hair and stared her reflection down, attempting to scowl the worry off her face like some of the broodier vigilantes she knew were wont to do.  It didn’t really work and instead, she just looked kind of ridiculous. 

Sighing dramatically, she tried to blow her bangs out of her face only for them to settle back down over her eyes.  She rolled her eyes, annoyed at herself.

For as much as she wanted the night to work out, _needed_ the night to be perfect, she was terrified something was going to go wrong.  She was almost positive that it would given her track record.  Stephanie wasn’t exactly known for her successful dates.  In fact, she wasn’t even sure if she’d ever been on one before. 

But then again, no one had ever made her feel the abject petrification that came with loving Cass.

“So you’re looking more flustered than usual,” Tim said from her doorway.  She jumped, not even hearing him approach.  “And _that’s_ saying something.”

She glared over at him and the too casual way he leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. 

“Didn’t the Batdad teach you not to break into another vigilante’s apartment?” she huffed. 

Tim shrugged.  “He probably did at some point, but that doesn’t really stop any of us, does it?”

Sighing again, Stephanie silently agreed.  She didn’t need to let Tim know that though. 

He was still invading her privacy.  And it couldn’t just be a coincidence that he was breaking into her apartment less than an hour before she was supposed to leave for a date with his adopted sister.  Steph didn’t believe in coincidences.  Not when it came to Gotham.

“What are you doing here, Tim?” she asked, turning back to her reflection and grabbing her concealer from her makeup bag.  She applied a healthy coat of it under her eyes to hide the fact that last night had been spent fighting crime and getting pummeled by Killer Croc rather than getting her beauty sleep.  And she still had faint bruises under her eyes from a few weeks ago when one of the Joker’s minions got the drop on her and broke her nose with a _crunch_ of their boot.

“There’s a better way to do that,” Tim replied, stepping closer to her. 

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.  “What?”

“To cover up the bruises.”  He pulled a small makeup kit from the pocket of his jacket, unzipped it, and gestured for her to sit down on the lid of the toilet.  Tim kneeled down in front of her and was quiet as he took a makeup removing cloth and wiped off what she’d already applied.  He pulled out some kind of stick-thing from the bad and Steph eyes it suspiciously.

“What is that?” Stephanie asked. 

Tim uncapped it and began gently applying under her eyes, mindful of her injuries.  “You have to counteract the color of the bruises before you cover them up.  Otherwise its just going to make you look sickly.”

Stephanie scrunched up her eyes before a smile spread across her face.  “Dick taught you all this, didn’t he?”

It was Tim’s turn to sigh.  “How did you guess?” he asked. 

“Well, Jason isn’t wrong when he says you and Dick make two of the hottest chicks in Gotham,” Stephanie jested.

“Jason flirted with me for almost an hour before he realized it was me,” Tim mumbled as he continued to coat Stephanie’s bruises.  “But you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“What, hot chicks?” Steph asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tim nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. 

“What can I say?” Steph asked, shrugging enough that Tim almost poked her eye with the pencil.  “Girls are great.”

“Did you ever think we’d be here?” Tim asked, moving on to apply concealer on her face.

“What, you putting on my makeup and easing me into whatever shovel talk you’re going to give me?”

Tim rolled his eyes.  “There’s no shovel talk, Steph.”

“Then why did you come here tonight if not to lecture me about what you’ll do if I break your sister’s heart?”

“Cass might be my sister,” he began, forehead wrinkled in concentration, “but you’re my best friend.  You know that.”

“I thought Kon was your best friend.”

“I’m allowed to have more than one, you know.  Kon is my Titans best friend, and you’re my Gotham best friend. 

“What I meant was, did you ever think we’d be here, years after we broke up-”

“-which time?”

“-and we’re perfectly comfortable with each other.”

“It does help that we both realized what big queers we are, I think,” Stephanie replied.

Tim cracked a smile.  “You know, I think that you’re right.”

“Besides,” Steph began, “we’re much better friends than we ever were when we were dating.”

“Definitely,” Tim agreed.  “That’s why I stopped by.  As your friend, I wanted to see how you were doing because I know how much you work yourself up when you’re nervous about something.”

“I was for sure before you showed up.  I’m pretty bad about that, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but I think it will just show Cass how much you care.”

Stephanie’s face fell.  “I honestly don’t know why I’m nervous.  Other than you, Cass is my best friend.  I shouldn’t be making this awkward.”

“It’s going to be fine,” he assured her.  He thumbed a palette of eye shadow from the bag.

“You can’t know that for sure,” Stephanie whispered, squeezing her eyes shut to fight back the tears that sprung to her eyes.

“I know,” Tim agreed, “but I do know that you like her and she likes you.  And I know that as two of the most important people in my life, I want you two to be happy so I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen.”

She smiled then, small and genuine.  “Okay.”

“Now, let’s finish getting you ready so you can have the time of your life tonight.”

***

Stephanie was not having the time of her life.  She didn’t know what was going on, but this was turning into one of the most awkward experiences of her entire life. 

It just didn’t make any sense.  Cassandra looked beautiful with her hair falling to her shoulders in waves, wearing a navy dress that made Stephanie’s breath catch in her throat.  They were in a nice restaurant (the nicest Stephanie could afford at any rate) where there was a maître d that wore impeccably pressed pants and a shirt so white it hurt Stephanie’s eyes to look at.  Though that could have just been due to the fact that her eyes still hurt from having her face beaten in a bit.

Cass was gracious enough to cover up her laugh with her hand when Stephanie took a slightly nervous, slightly overzealous swallow of wine and ended up spilling it down the front of her dress.  It streamed down her left boob and pooled in her lap.  And of course she was wearing a lavender dress so it deepened into her usual eggplant from the liquid.  The waiter passing by sneered at her. 

Which, yeah, had been happening since she first walked into the restaurant and society saw Bruce Wayne’s daughter slumming it with poor white trash.  Even with the fancy dress that Stephanie had saved tips for weeks from her barista job just to buy it and wearing her mom’s nice set of jewelry, people could still tell.

But even Steff couldn’t blame Cass for bursting into laughter after Steph stood up from her chair to go to the bathroom and knocked into a waiter.  Who then proceeded to drop his entire tray of drinks.  It was kind of all downhill from there. 

“What are you thinking of ordering?” Cass asked, glancing up from her menu.  Steph was pretty sure that Cass was trying to break the silence more than anything, but she was grateful for the effort.  After a bit of small talk, they’d lapsed into silence after silence with Stephanie making inane comments in between. 

Stephanie glanced down at her menu really quickly.  She’d been staring at it for minutes now and hadn’t absorbed a single thing.  “Ah, hmm,” she said, completely flustered.  Her cheeks brightened.  She knew that Cass knew she’d been spacing out, overanalyzing, beating rationality into submission.  Cass had always been able to read her like a book.  Usually, Stephanie really like that about her, that sometimes she didn’t even have to tell her what she was thinking.  That Cass would just know.  But right now, while Stephanie was almost working herself up into a panic attack, it just made her feel kind of awful. 

Awful was the last thing Stephanie wanted for their first date.  Dating was something they had been working up to for years, since even before Cass gave Stephanie Batgirl and left Gotham.  Since before Stephanie became Robin and died and then came back.  The entire time she’d been in Africa after Dr. Thompkins resuscitated her, she’d thought of Cassandra. 

Even then, Stephanie knew what she wanted.  It hadn’t been Tim she thought of in those last few moments before sleep claimed her each night.  She had to do something before the night became a total disaster.

Just as Stephanie was about to open her mouth to say something, _anything_ that might salvage the night, the alarms on Cassandra’s and Stephanie’s watches simultaneously beeped.  Cass frowned down at her watch, tapped a button, and then frowned harder before she looked up at Stephanie. 

“Break out at Arkham,” Cass said quietly.

“That means all hands on deck, right?” Stephanie asked, trying to keep the relief from her voice. 

Minutely, Cass nodded.  “We have to go.”

Stephanie attempted to flag down a waiter but each one either ignored her or quickly looked away.  Cass raised a slim hand into the air and two nearly collided with each other in their hurry to scamper over to her. 

Stephanie raised an eyebrow before rolling her eyes. 

“Is there anything I can help you with, Miss Wayne?” one of the waiters asked, giving the stink eye to the other.

“Anything at all, just ask,” the other said, ignoring his coworker. 

“Something has come up and we’d like to reschedule our dinner if possible,” Cass said.  She gave a small, wry smile to Stephanie who had to fight to hold back her own.  Especially with the way the two waiters had turned their displeasure her way.

“Certainly, Miss Wayne.  We’ll hold the reservation for you indefinitely.”

“Thank you so much,” Cass said, standing and slipping into her shrug and heading towards the door.

Running to catch up as quickly as her heels would allow, Stephanie followed.  When she fell into step with Cass, she leaned down to Cass’ ear and said, “Closest bunker is three blocks away?”

Cassandra nodded.  “There’s a car hidden in the alley.”

“So no one will see a couple of overdressed ladies sneaking into a building?” Stephanie asked jokingly.  Even with just the excitement of the night building, she was starting to feel a bit like herself again. 

“Exactly,” Cass replied, turning a corner into the alley.  She brushed her fingers down Stephanie’s bare arm and Steph looked over at her.  “We’ll talk later, okay?”

Cold apprehension ran down Steph’s neck.  Steph pressed her lips together and nodded.  Cass gave her a small smile.

Hitting a button on her watch, the car came out of camouflage mode and they slipped inside.  The drive to the bunker was quiet and made Stephanie’s apprehension grow. 

Steph avoided any form of eye contact while they got changed, keeping her eyes firmly planted on a spot on the wall about six feet from the ground. 

“You ready?” Cass asked, and Steph’s eyes snapped over to her.

She felt better suited up, more like herself.  “Yeah,” Steph said, leading the way to the garage where the car was parked.

“A bike might be better,” Cass said, like she was mulling it over.  “We could get through traffic much faster.”

“Alright,” Steph said, straddling one of the bikes.  She was surprised when she felt Cass climb on the bike behind her, her hands coming to rest on Stephanie’s hips.  She knew how clichéd it sounded, but the feel of Cass behind her sent a chill down her spine.

“So where we headed?” Steph asked.

“Robinson Park. Poison Ivy decided to set up shop there again and Harley went with her,” Cass said into the comm.

“Oh, so you’re saying we have our work cut out for us then, huh?”

“Looks like it.  It never means anything good when those two get together.”

“You know, Red Robin told me that they’re together,” Cass said.

Steph laughed.  “Yeah, I know.  That’s why we’re headed to Robinson Park.”

“No,” Cass said, the pressure on Steph’s hips increasing slightly, “I mean that they’re _together._ ”

“Huh.”

“Well, they interrupt our day.  We should interrupt theirs.”

And oh yeah, Steph shivered again. 

***

“Well well well, lookee here, Ivy,” Harley said.  “I’d say ‘look what the cat dragged in,’ but I haven’t seen Selina for a while.”

“Oh my god,” Steph mumbled, cracking her knuckles, “it really is going to be a long night.”

“Not exactly the long night I was looking forward to though,” Cass said.  Steph faltered and her jaw dropped.  “Like I said, we’ll talk later,” she added.  And then dove into the fray. 

Harley and Ivy fought differently than most of the criminals Steph came up against.  Usually, there was a swarm of them but they went down easily, after just a hit or two.  Harley and Ivy were smart though.  They were both doctors, fought with their heads and not oversized, meaty fists.  Ivy had her plants and toxins at her disposal and Harley had enough weapons for her own arsenal. 

Cass and Steph got separated at one point, Harley taking off and Cass chasing after her.  Steph was doing pretty well dodging vines and jacking herself full of toxin neutralizers and antidotes before Ivy finally got the drop on her.  Steph was worn out, which, yeah, was obviously what Ivy’d been waiting for. 

“So you and Black Bat, hmm?” Ivy asked, running her finger down the side of Stephanie’s face.  “If I’d have known that, I would have used some of my other, more persuasive techniques on the two of you ages ago.”

“Not sure what you’re talking about,” Stephanie said, teeth clenched shut tight.

Ivy chuckled, and the vines around Steph’s wrists and ankles tightened.  “Of course you don’t.”  Putting her hands on her hips, Ivy stood and assessed her for a moment before a small smile spread across her face.  “I saw that way you looked at her.  I’ve been out of the game for a while, but I’m never wrong about these things.”

Stephanie said nothing and tried  to relax her limbs as much as she possibly could.

“I thought you were the chatty one,” Ivy mused, eyes still boring into her.  “Who am I kidding though?  The entire lot of you is a chatty bunch.”  Ivy kneeled closer.  “Except maybe that lovely little girlfriend of yours.  She’s pretty quiet.”

“You have no idea,” Steph said.  Then she smashed her face into Ivy’s as hard as she possibly could.  So much for Tim’s expert makeup application.

The sudden impact was enough to loosen Ivy’s control of the vines enough for Steph to slip out of them before lunging.

“Need any help, Fatgirl?” Damian said over the comm.

“Got this covered, squirt,” Steph grunted as Ivy tried to struggle from her grasp.  She pulled a pair of handcuffs from one of the pouches on her belt and snapped them onto Ivy’s wrists.

Ivy opened her mouth to say something, but Steph put a gag over her mouth.  Could never be too careful with Ivy.  “Let me guess?  Next time you break out, I’m going to pay?  That sound about right?”

Tapping her comm., Steph said, “Poison Ivy has been recaptured.”

“Can’t believe you managed that by yourself without messing it up,” Damian scoffed.

“ _Robin!_ ” she heard Dick say in the background.

“Ignore him,” Tim said into the comm.  “He was raised by wolves.”

“Drake!”

“Robin, no names.  I don’t care how much you’re provoked,” Dick said for what was probably the fifteenth time that night if Steph had to hazard a guess.

“GCPD is on the way,” Oracle interrupted. 

Stephanie stayed just long enough for the police to haul Ivy into the back of a van before she scaled the side of a nearby building.  Cass was waiting for her up there.

“I was hoping you’d notice me from down there,” Cass said when Stephanie approached her.

“I almost didn’t.  This building is about twenty stories from the ground.”

“Twenty-two actually.”

Steph rolled her eyes.  She’d been doing a lot of that tonight.  But then she stepped closer and, in a soft voice, said, “You wanted to talk.”

“About our date,” Cass led. 

Stephanie cringed.  “It was awful, I know it was.  I’m so sorry.”

“It really was,” Cassandra agreed.

“I’d definitely understand if didn’t want to do it again, if you wanted to just be friends.”

Cass walked closer until she stood right in front of Stephanie.  “The date was awful, but not because I don’t like you.  It was awful because it wasn’t us.”

Frowning, Steph asked, “What do you mean?”

“We aren’t exactly the sort of girls that feel comfortable in restaurants that sell food that costs more than new uniforms do.”

“But your Bruce Wayne’s daughter.  You live in a mansion.  I thought this was what you wanted.”

Cass rolled her eyes this time.  “I have my own apartment now.  And you know I wasn’t raised into this life.  I don’t need fancy dinners and dresses to be happy, Steph.  I went along with it because I thought that was what you wanted our first date to be.”

“I only wanted it because that’s what you deserve, Cass,” Stephanie said quietly.  “You deserve so much.  More than I can give you.”

“I don’t know about all that.  Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t.  But what about what I _want_.  I don’t want five star restaurants where waiters let me walk all over them because Bruce Wayne adopted me.”  Cass released a deep breath, looked Stephanie hard in the eyes, and said, “I just want you.”

Something inside Steph let go then, things she’d been holding back for as long as she could remember.  Her eyes welled even as she reached for Cass’ hand and said, “I really want to kiss you right now, but I don’t want to do it without your permission.”

Cass gave her a small smile.  “You have my permission,” she said and reached up to cup Stephanie’s face. 

“You’re going to be so much trouble, aren’t you?” Steph asked, suddenly breathless. 

“I certainly hope so,” Cass replied, and closed the distance between them. 


End file.
